lanie could feel her nerves start to fray as she tried to reassure herself that this was probably a tactic used by police to ntally weaken her. But, the fact that she had been left here for more than an hour, to only stare at the cold walls was indeed getting to her.
There were no windows, just harsh fluorescent lights humming above and a single tal table with a pair of chairs on either side. Her cuffs had finally been removed, but the soreness in her wrists lingered.
She sat stiffly, her arms crossed protectively, eyes flickering toward the door every few seconds. Her mind was a whirl of questions—about Adam, about Saira, about who had set her up. It had to be a setup. There was no other explanation. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was proving it before it was too late.
Finally, the heavy door started to move and she looked up to see two different officers enter the room. She breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully they would be more open to listenting to her.
However, she suddenly felt it was useless to hope for that because the mont they sat opposite her, they started questioning,"Mrs. Collins, you ca to Maniwa alone?"
"Yes."
"And why exactly did you co to Maniwa?"
"I ca for business," lanie answered quickly. "I was told there would be an auction. But,"
"An auction?" The detective cut her off, his eyes narrowing as he pulled out a notepad. "What kind of auction?"
"A timber auction. I work in furniture, and a contact had told there’d be a private auction for walnut and oak wood."
The detective scoffed. "There were no authorized auctions of any kind scheduled in Maniwa this week. You know why? Because we have strict regulation. Any comrcial auction must be cleared through the Trade Registry and local police departnt. So either your ’contact’ lied to you, or you’re lying to us."
lanie felt her throat tighten. "I know there was no auction. I was told it was a misunderstanding when I reached the site... that I was misled."
"Well, well. You should have been a story writer Mrs Collins. You ca here for an auction that doesn’t exist. And just so happened to walk in on your husband with another woman the next morning. That sa woman ends up dead later that night. And Adam ends up stabbed. You want us to believe that’s just... coincidence? You knew he was in Maniwa, right, before you ca here?"
lanie shook her head and was about to explain that she had been shocked to see Adam here because she had not known he was here but as she started the man threw her phone on the table," Don’t even think of lying. We just checked the ti of your husband’s ssage to you, informing you of his departure for Maniwa and the ti stamp on the checking of the ssage is a few minutes earlier than when you left for the airport."
"That is a coincidence. I didn’t actually see the ssage. I opened the chat to ssage him and missed his..."
The officer cut her off and asked," But you did not ssage him. The chat after that is empty."
"It really is a coincidence..." lanie tried to explain but before she could continue, she was cut off once again."
"Convenient...So what about this wood deal? You said you signed sothing?"
"Yes. A preliminary agreent with a local supplier that I t early morning yesterday. I can get you his contact... You can verify the eting. There must be CCTV footage from around the place."
"We’ll look into it," the officer said flatly and then threw another set of docunts on the table," Would you like to explain this then?"
lanie picked up the papers from the table as she asked," What is this..." But in the next mont she trailed off as she realized... this was her search history from her laptop. However, what did this have to... But then her heart almost fell to her stomach... How could this be?
Before she could make sense of anything, the detective snatched the papers from her hand and directly asked her," So, Mrs Collins, would you like to explain why there is a search history in your laptop about laws regarding murder and attempted murder... you’ve even read an article that details the way a serial killer usually stabbed his victims. What do you have to say about this? Does your business about furniture need you to search this? Or are you now going to claim you are an author and were using this for research?"
The officer banged his hand on the table as he asked this and for the first ti, lanie jumped. This search was from several days ago but she had never done sothing like this! How could that be? This was ridiculous..."
She shook her head, trying to clear it but the detective seed to think that she’d gone silent because she had been caught. He threw a few sheafs of paper on the table and a pen," Write your confession! If you confess and plead guilty, maybe our judge will feel sorry for you and give you a lesser punishnt."
"I didn’t do this. Believe , I didn’t! I don’t even know how this ca into my search history! I swear, I did not lay a finger on Adam or Saira. Please, you have to believed ! Sairs was not even Adam’s mistress! She was trying to blackmail him. You have to find out the truth."
The officers both scoffed and stepped back," You can keep denying all you want. But all the evidence is already pointing towards you! So, stop trying to prolong this and just write a confession."
But lanie desperately shook her head," No! Believe I didn’t do anything! You can check the surveillance of the hotel I was staying at. I didn’t even leave my room all night after Adam left! I only checked out this morning and later went straight to the airport! You can make sure of that!"
The two officers exchanged a look at that point. Maybe sothing in her desperation had them doubting the evidence so they nodded at each other as one said," Okay. We’ll look into it. But, you better hope for your sake that we find sothing that clears you. Because right now? All the evidence points at you."
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